English 471

Rhetoric: East Meets West

修辞:中西方之交汇

Course: English 471

Time: TTH 4:15 - 5:30 pm

Location: 303 Willard

Instructor: Xiaoye You

Office: Burrowes 135

Phone: (814) 863-0595

Email: xuy10@psu.edu

Office Hours: TTH 2:30-4:00 pm by appointment

Course Description

While classical Western rhetoric continues to offer theoretical guidance in communication and composition studies, its cultural limitations have been increasingly exposed by recent studies of non-Western rhetorical texts. This course will survey issues that have emerged in cross-cultural rhetorical studies and how they have consequently expanded our horizon on human communication, including ritualistic, oral, and written. Students will read scholarly discussions on intercultural communication and original texts from classical non-Western rhetoric, including Chinese, Indian, and Near-Eastern rhetorics. The class will discuss the implications of non-Western rhetorical theories for oral and written communication in the age of globalization.

Course assignments include readings, research notes, a report on cultural exchange and a semester-long research project on intercultural rhetoric. You need to complete required readings before class. For the research notes, you will be assigned a certain rhetorical topic, and you focus on this topic while you read classical texts. You prepare your research notes for class discussions. You will also be introduced to an intercultural communication class in Taiwan and then you engage some online exchanges (at least five times) with students in that class on suggested topics as well as topics of your own interest. You will write a 1000-word report at the end of the semester to report and reflect upon your intercultural communication experience. For the research project, your will first prepare a research proposal, then a preliminary research report, and finally a final research report.

Grades will be assigned as follows,

Research Notes – 50 points

Research Proposal - 10 points

Preliminary Research Report - 10 points

Final Research Report – 20 points

Report on Cultural Exchanges – 10 points

Required Texts

The following texts and a course pack are required.

Aristotle.On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans. George A Kennedy. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.

Combs, Steven C. The Dao of Rhetoric. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2005.

Confucius. The Analects of Confucius. Trans. Arthur Waley. Vintage, 1989.

Kennedy, George A. Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.

Li, Xiaoming. “Good Writing” in Cross-Cultural Context. Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1996.

Lao Tsu. Tao Te Ching. Trans. Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. Vintage, 1997.

Plato. Phaedrus. Trans. Robin Waterfield. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Schedule

Week 1 (September 5, 7) Contrastive Rhetoric

Tuesday: Introduction

Thursday: Kaplan - “Cultural Thought Patterns in Intercultural Education.”

Matalene - “Contrastive Rhetoric: An American Writing Teacher in China.”

Week 2 (September 12, 14) Contrastive Rhetoric

Tuesday: Li – “Good” Writing in Cross-Cultural Context (p. 1-36)

Thursday: Li – “Good” Writing in Cross-Cultural Context (p. 37-58, 111-128)

Week 3 (September 19, 21) Comparative Rhetoric

Tuesday: Kennedy - Comparative Rhetoric (Prologue, Chapter 1, 2)

Thursday: Kennedy – Comparative Rhetoric (Chapter 5, 9)

Week 4 (September 26, 28) Greek Rhetoric *

Tuesday: Plato – Phaedrus

Due: Research Proposal, 1^st draft

Thursday: Aristotle – On Rhetoric

Due: Introductory Email for the Cultural Exchange

Week 5 (October 3, 5)

Conference on Research Proposal

Week 6 (October 10, 12) Daoist Rhetoric

Tuesday:　Tao Te Ching (Introduction, Chapter 1-40)

Due: Research Notes on Greek Rhetoric

Due: Research Proposal, final draft

Thursday: Tao Te Ching (Chapter 41-81)

Combs – Dao of Rhetoric (Chapter 2 “Laozi and the Natural Way of Rhetoric”)

Week 7 (October 17, 19) Daoist Rhetoric

Tuesday: Combs – Dao of Rhetoric (Chapter 4 “Sunzi and the Rhetoric of Parsimony; Chapter 6 “Is The Tao of Steve Really ‘The Way’?”)

Thursday: Combs – Dao of Rhetoric (Chapter 7 “Values East and West in Antz and A Bug’s Life”; Chapter 8 “Shrek as the Daoist Hero”)

Week 8 (October 24, 26) Confucian Rhetoric

Tuesday: Confucius – The Analects (Introduction)

Lu - “Conceptualization of Yan and Ming Bian: The School of Confucianism”

Due: Research Notes for Daoist Rhetoric

Thursday: Confucius – The Analects (Book I-X)

Mao – ““What’s in a Name? That Which is Called ‘Rhetoric’ Would in the Analects Mean ‘Participatory Discourse.’”

Week 9 (Oct. 31, Nov. 2) Confucian Rhetoric

Tuesday: Confucius – The Analects (Book XI-XX)

Due: Preliminary Research Report, 1^st draft

Thursday: You - “The Way, Multimodality of Ritual Symbols, and Social Change: Reading Confucius’s Analects as A Rhetoric”

Kevin - “It Takes a Rhetorical Village: Analyzing the Rhetoric of Student Protests at Penn State”

Week 10 (November 7, 9)

Conference on Preliminary Report

Week 11 (November 14, 16) Near Eastern Rhetoric

Tuesday: Lipson - "Ancient Egyptian Rhetoric: It All Comes Down to Maat."

Due: Research Notes for Confucian Rhetoric

Due: Preliminary Report, final draft

Thursday: Watts - “Story-List-Sanction: A Cross-Cultural Strategy of Ancient Persuasion.”

Week 12 (November 21, 23)

Thanksgiving, no class

Week 13 (November 28, 30) Indian Rhetoric

Tuesday: Kennedy – Comparative Rhetoric (Chapter 8)

Due: Research Notes for Near Eastern Rhetoric

Thursday: Stroud – “Multivalent Narratives and Indian Philosophical Argument: Insights from the Bhagavad Gīta.”

Week 14 (December 5, 7) Rhetorical Education

Tuesday: You – “Writing in the ‘Devil’s’ Tongue: Rhetoric and English Composition in Chinese Colleges, 1862-2004” (Introduction, Chapter 1)

Due: Final Research Report, 1^st draft

Due: Research Notes for Indian Rhetoric

Thursday: You – “Writing in the ‘Devil’s’ Tongue: Rhetoric and English Composition in Chinese Colleges, 1862-2004” (Chapter 2, 3)